3 of the Hottest Stories in Surrogacy Right Now

Well my, my, my…what a busy time in the land of surrogacy. Where shall we begin? How about….oh I don’t know…with men possibly being able to have babies…like, in the NEAR future?!

Men Having Babies

I’m going to break it down for you and remove the medical mumbo jumbo because I like to keep it simple. Dr. Richard Paulson, the president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, basically says…men could essentially start getting pregnant tomorrow. And here’s how:

Man gets uterus transplant.

Embryo is implanted in said man’s uterus through IVF.

Man has baby.

This probably oversimplifies things too much because it leaves out complications such as hormone issues, men not having as much room in the pelvic area as women, the fact that the uterus that is being transplanted needs to come from somewhere, and oh yeah…men don’t have vaginas from which the baby can exit. But…there are solutions to all of the above issues, and you can read more about them here.

I have all kinds of jokes about men not even being able to handle colds (i.e. “man flu"), so I’m not certain they can even handle pregnancies, but I was told to keep this positive.

So, I will say this…isn’t science and technology amazing? I mean…seriously…this is pretty incredible. Infertile women who have issues with their uteruses, couples consisting of two men…suddenly a whole new potential avenue to have their own biological children has opened!

Surrogate Woman Has Two Babies - One is Hers; One is NOT

It’s one of those bizarre stories you read in the National Inquirer while standing in the checkout line at the grocery story, and you write it off as fake news. You can’t get pregnant WHILE you are pregnant, right?! Well…it did happen, and it’s called superfetation.

Here’s how it went down. Jessica Allen was a surrogate for a Chinese couple (surrogacy is illegal in China, by the way). She gets implanted with the Intended Parent’s embryo and it sticks…hooray! The ultrasound shows it’s twins…double hooray! But…hold your horses and hoorays. The babies are born, and it’s pretty darn obvious that they look NOTHING alike and are definitely not biologically related.

What the what? Long story short…Allen was implanted with the Intended Parent’s embryo and shortly after, somehow, gets pregnant with her own baby (although claiming to have followed the doctor’s order regarding abstaining from sex for the appropriate amount of time). Wow, right?! That’s some Maury Povich show content if I’ve ever seen it. The first few articles out about this really vilified the Intended Parents, saying they tried to get money from the surrogate to get HER biological child back or else they would put the baby up for adoption, etc. But, as we all know, every story has two sides (or ten). We obviously don’t know the details, and no one probably ever will know them all, but we thought this article at least presented a different viewpoint of the story and showed what both sides may be thinking.

In the end, the Chinese Intended Parents have their baby and the Surrogate mother has her baby with her now husband, but unfortunately, there’s been a lot of mud-slinging around what surely has been a very traumatic experience for both. And…it’s the VERY rare stories like these that can sometimes scare away those interested in the miracle that is surrogacy. We always urge everyone to have compassion and empathy and not to judge before or even when you have all the facts because…unless you’re walking in those shoes…you just don’t know.

Rep. Trent Franks Resigns After Inappropriately Discussing Surrogacy

A co-worker shared this article, and without further investigation, I have to be honest…I was a little on the fence because it wasn’t very specific. It said, “Franks detailed [to a co-worker] how he and his wife had ‘long struggled with infertility’ and suffered three miscarriages. They had twins through a surrogate, but subsequent attempts to have another child by either adoption or another surrogate fell through.”

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I tend to get a case of the "Chatty Cathy" going on in the workplace at times and may talk about things that could be perceived as inappropriate or “TMI” to others, and I mean nothing harmful by it. So…I kind of felt bad for him…like maybe he was sharing his struggles to someone he thought could be a shoulder to lean on? But then I read THIS!

HE OFFERED AN AIDE $5 MILLION TO BE HIS SURROGATE! So…yeah…a little different. Here’s my friendly advice, Mr. Franks. If you’d like to discuss surrogacy or if you’d like to get matched with a surrogate:

Find a Surrogacy board on social media - There are some great ones out there where you can discuss all aspects of surrogacy and get lots of support.

Find a Surrogacy Support Group - See reasons above.

Find a great surrogacy agency - Like…say…New Mexico Surrogacy who will match you with an amazing gestational surrogate so you don’t have to be the guy at work who is trying to pay your female co-workers to carry your baby for you.

I’m going to follow my advice from the story above and have compassion and empathy and realize that this man must have truly been desperate for another child to have gone to the lengths of offering a co-worker $5 million to be his surrogate, so I am not judging. However, here’s a Public Service Announcement for everyone: